Toyota invited hundreds of journalists from around the country to an absolutely absurd event in California. At the shindig are 1. The never-before-seen Toyota 4Runner. 2. The new Land Cruiser (first-ever press-drive) 3. The new Toyota Tacoma Hybrid (first-ever press-drive) — TRD Pro and Trailhunter 4. The new Toyota Camry (first-ever press-drive) 5. The new Toyota Crown Signia (also a first-ever press-drive). It is the single most important Toyota event, possibly ever, with not just a massive debut in the 4runner, but the very first opportunities to drive some hugely popular, high-volume enthusiast vehicles. Here, let me show you what it’s like.
Usually, when an exciting vehicle comes out, automakers invite a bunch of journalists, and we spend a full day driving that car and evaluating it. Toyota did something different.
Instead of a two-day event for a single car, the company organized a two-day event for five cars, four of which we can drive. Those cars include:
- The new Toyota Land Cruiser
- The new Toyota Tacoma Hybrid (including TRD Pro and Trailhunter)
- The new Toyota Camry (I’m sitting in one now as I type this)
- The new Toyota Crown Signia
On top of that, the event includes the world debut of the new Toyota 4runner.
That’s one huge debut, three huge first-drives, and one Crown Signia. Things are wild, here. There are loads of journalists, all trying to make sure they get enough content for each car.
I, in a stroke of genius, hired a secret weapon:
Hello from California, where I’m doing work for some friends pic.twitter.com/m3yeDHhaUO
— Alanis King (@alanisnking) April 8, 2024
Check out these cars we’re driving. Look at all these TRD Pros:
Here’s the off-road trail I got to drive the Trailhunter on:
Check out all these Land Cruisers:
Here’s the new Camry, an all-wheel drive fuel-sipping cruiser:
And here’s the new Crown Signia, the crossover version of the Crown:
That’s a lot of cool cars.
I’ve already seen the new 4Runner; we’ll have it on this website tonight at 10:15 eastern Time, so get ready, because it’s actually legit.
Embargoes for the other cars are as follows:
o Land Cruiser – April 16, 2024, 7:00 AM EDT
o Camry – April 18, 2024, 7:00 AM EDT
o Tacoma HEV – April 23, 2024, 7:00 AM EDT
o Crown Signia – April 25, 2024, 7:00 AM EDT
I’m writing up Land Cruiser and Taco; Alanis is on the Camry and Crown Signia.
Get ready for some reviews of some cool cars.
Damn it…. all those new 4runners around San Diego and I missed seeing any of them.
I’m still disappointed Toyota still won’t bring us a Hilux. And a single cab model at that.
This is a tangential question, but I recall someone saying “you can’t order a specific Toyota”. Is that true? Like, you can’t order a specific build, even if there’s a wait?
Not that I will be in a position to buy new for a while–but I just find that interesting. (And stupid.)
This specific question coming to mind when I found out the two lowest trim Tundras can come in an extended-cab 8.1-foot bed option. And in a nice shade of blue.
With the GR86 you can’t so you just have to hope the dealer can find the car with the options. I know a lot of people had to wait a year or two to even have a chance at buying a neptune GR86. It also seemed to be the case when I was looking at Supras and they said they didn’t know when they could get a manual in. Which is why in the end I just went with the BRZ since I could order exactly what I wanted without a crazy markup too
Is any manufacturer looking ahead to the next thing?
This off-road craze is going to end. How many of these things actually go off road? I saw a Jeep the other day with twenty-big inch color-matched wheels wrapped in low-profile tires with offroad tread. It seems like all the scratch and mud- free Raptors that were prowling my Suburb a few years ago have been replaced with these offroad ‘style’ rigs.
Even the Crown Signia, a car I would be grudgingly interested in, becomes less useful for its actual function by being jacked up. If it sits 2″ higher than it should for road use, that’s 2″ higher I need to lift my lazy dogs into the back of the thing. My dogs are getting bigger and my back is getting older.
I’m actually looking at Honda Civics right now. It’s available as a hatchback and offers a manual. Those two things make it one of the more exciting car options on the market for a daily driver. I bought a Civic new almost 30 years ago. I can’t believe I may have to do it again.
GT86 shooting brake? Nope. Can’t be done. We’re too busy putting Soccer Dads on 35″ tires.
As much as I agree with you that buying cars designed for offroading is unnecessary for most people, I think it falls into the same “ready for anything” feeling that also results in the current popularity of trucks, even for people who don’t use the “truck” features.
And I won’t pretend I’m immune, either. I drove a Ford Econoline for 7 years…I knew I didn’t need off-road capability, but for the most part it very much fed the “ready for anything” feeling otherwise.
I get it, but I don’t have to like it. We have 2 Subarus in the garage, despite having no outdoor / offroad activities except for the time we rented an Airbnb in northern VT that was on a dirt road. We haven’t had a legitimate snowy winter since 2015 – and I managed that one just fine in an FR-S on snow tires. It wasn’t the best, but I never needed a towtruck
If it snows now, the worst case scenario is that I have to do my six mile commute and she works from home. It’s the same reason I had race everything on my S13 240SX that never saw a racetrack, and even now I’m wearing out competition tires on my Miata at reasonable / legal speeds entirely on public roads.
We’re all idiots. In the past we were limited in outwardly expressing this idiocy because it required effort. You had to go find parts and an installer or be knowledgeable enough to do it yourself. Today you can roll out of the dealership with a truck that looks (and claims) ready for the Baja 1000.
Maybe the next time things swing the other way, we’ll be able to drive off the lot in LeMans Prototypes.
Super cool you got Alanis!
Of course they combined it all, they are all the same fucking car.
New Toyota sucks. I know sales say different, I know that people here will get as pedantic as they can with me, but I don’t care. Toyota makes nothing but ugly cars and they are all the same.
The public loves it, because the public is stupid too. All they care about is being in a new car that work like a microwave.
Don’t want to sound ignorant here, but would rather be certain….
Toyota Tacoma HEV means Hybrid Electric Vehicle?
But not plug-in, or that would be PHEV.
For the life of me, I can’t recall what that power cycle would look like.
Yes, Toyota seems to have adopted putting “HEV” badging to get “EV” onto their cars. Hybrid Electric Vehicle.
See here on the Prius:
https://www.toyota.com/prius/photo-gallery/section/exterior/slide/4
I remember when DT was an everyman. Now he is bragging his I3 exhaust don’t stink. Look at me everybody? Well I still love him.
what the fuck is a “signia”? do they mean “insignia”?
Toyota was waiting on Buick and said “fine, we’ll make it then!”
Very much looking forward to a robust report on the Crown Signia – the wagon Toyota won’t call a wagon.
Same here tbh, despite David’s lack of interest ;). Glad Alanis is on it!
I thought Toyota did call it a wagon and then everyone agreed it most certainly isn’t?
Much higher chance I buy one of those than a 4Runner.
Toyotathon sure seems a lot like Truck Month this year.
Every time I see “Crown” my heart skips a little because I’m thinking “Century,” and then, y’know, reality catches up to me.
I overtook an early 90’s Crown Super Saloon last week on vacation in South Carolina. I drooled the whole way by. We were nearly a military base so my guess was the young guy driving it brought it back with him from a stint in Japan.
They should have saved this for December. Then, it would be a December to remember.
Can you ask someone from Toyota when the 2-door, extended-cab Tacoma will actually be shipping to dealers? I understand they want to build the more profitable and loaded crew cabs out first, but I feel betrayed that the 2-door only exists on the website and dealers aren’t even aware that it exists.
For which trim? I think the up-level TRD trims only come in double cab now.
I believe the 2-door extended cab is listed as available with SR and SR5 trim. Or at least theoretically available.
I think they’re having trouble getting any of them out to dealers. Tacoma sales are way off pace of what they normally are, over Q1 in the past few years they usually sell somewhere around 50-60k units but this year they’ve only moved 21.5k. Tacoma has long been the sales leader and is actually facing equally new competition so they can’t be happy. Even the Frontier is behind it by only ~2k units YTD.
There is literally no reason to buy either the new taco or tundra (other than big tundra discounts at the dealers), they suck compared to the competitors and are leaders of nothing. The insides look like ass too. Toyota with this new CEO is gross. Sure they sell a lot of phev, but their entire off road line up minus the new LC is gross. And they nerfed the LC and gave us a shit version to boot!
As excited by all the upcoming news from all these new vehicles, I am sidetracked by the lady at the table who is eating. (Glasses on her head) She looks very familiar, but I can’t remember where I’ve seen her before.
That fleet of TRD Pro Tacomas looks staggeringly cool! The LCs look awesome, too. I’m really excited to read about how they drive.
Insane?… In the Toyota sense? Cause I don’t see any hookers/strippers, drugs, a rocking band, etc. Just some boring Toyotas. Now Crazy Eddie…. he was insane.
Crazy Eddie… now that is a name I have not heard in a long time.
I heard his name 5 years ago, in my auditing class, and not for good reasons.
Ha, saw all of the outdoor scenes and wondered where in San Diego they’re holding the event. The shot of the Crown in Coronado in front of the San Diego skyline confirms it.
East County mountains somewhere? Looks like Campo or Boulevard – McCain Valley?
Maybe Corral Canyon?
Is Jan there? She’d be there wearing the red dress or red shirt…can’t miss her.
She’s really Plain Jane the “e” was accidently left off in the first script, normal & boring looking, not offensive or overly appealing, just your normal looking nice happy go lucky American woman…. kinda a good representation of Toyotas…
Agree. I kind of like her though… and for whatever reason, I bet she wouldn’t put up with Jason or David’s shenanigans.
Considering what I’ve seen so far unless the new 4Runner is massively cheaper than the new Land Cruiser Prado I really don’t what Toyota is doing.
*don’t get what Toyota is doing.
-_-
Original owners beat on the 4Runners.
It’s the second owners who beat on the Land Cruisers.
More specifically, the 4Runner is likely to list around 40k for bottom-end trim, while the LC will be about 60k for the lowest trim. Toyota has enough presence in the offroad market (even though hardly anyone takes their LC or 4Runners off pavement) that they can afford to play everywhere in the 40k-90k space.
They both appear to have the same engines (though the 4Runner can be had without the hybrid system).
Toyota’s off road offerings have been severely lacking, their ADD continues to be the weakest link in their 4x4s and it really keeps them from being properly off road capable. TFL broke their ADD on a new Tacoma doing some very minor off-roading in its stock configuration. Even if you do all the proper mods necessary to have a reliable off road capable lifted version you’re still stuck with the weak link that is the ADD.
Toyota should ditch ADD and go back to manually engaged 4WD, with a proper locking center differential as an option.
Toyota also should offer a manual transmission for both the 4Runner and the 2 Door Tacoma.
No disagree on the ADD. It’s a shame nobody offers manual locking hubs anymore. But this is something Toyota should be good at, given how relatively bulletproof the rest of the drivetrain components generally are.
I’d also agree with you on the manual transmission. My current 4Runner is a manual, and it is meaningfully useful (perhaps less so in the era of everybody running 8-speed autos like the ubiquitous ZF8HP that sits in everything from the Ineos Grenadier to half of BMW’s lineup).
But I wouldn’t go so far as to say lacking. Compared to the performance offered in the past, yes. But compared to anything else out there – at this price point, it’s low-end Jeeps and… almost nothing else. The Xterra is gone, the Mitsubishi Montero is gone, the Trooper is long gone. You can jump up a couple price points to the realm of LC and Bronco and high-end Wranglers, but at 40k, Toyota sorta wins by default.
I gotta disagree. For about 37k Jeep will happily build you a 4 door, stick shift, manual windows, soft top jeep, in whatever color you want, and add whatever accessories you want, and youll be driving it in about 2 months tops.
Will the 4runner last 400,000 miles? More than likely. But you cant custom order it, you have to take what you can find, and hope the one you found is at a dealer that isnt marking them up. Then youll spend thousands more on accessories, and But off road, and in on road fun factor, a 4runner doesn’t win by default. Its just another (even if its arguably smarter) option at best.
They only really hold up on the value proposition if youre buying brand new and are worried about resale.
I am excited to read more about the Crown Signia and then make fun of it. This far, I can’t see a single thing that makes it “more crossover” than the regular Crown.
Just think of it as a wagon and it all makes sense
I just think of it as the godchild of the AMC Eagle. Everything that was old is new again.
This is the way
As evidenced by the default mainstream “car” shape returning to the 1940s.
Well, but from this picture, it doesn’t look like a wagon version of a Crown. It just looks like a Crown.
But I’ll still make fun of it for being a bad wagon
Deets on the Crown Signia please! My wife is intrigued
PHEV Camry?
Grounded to the motherfarming ground, beotch.
I’ve been very curious about the Signia, but I’ll definitely be reading all of these articles with significant interest. I do wish they gave you as much time with each vehicle as a dedicated single-car event, though. I hope you can give each one enough time to give us all those juicy details!
Ugh, Toyota’s been doing these combo-days in Texas (albeit with fewer first-time-ever drives) for a few years now, and…saying I’m not a fan would be the understatement. I got sent to it a couple years in a row as the token Texan, and oof. It’s the one event where I’m like, yeah, I’m glad someone else is going to that. I miss doing more hands-on stuff, too, and the 4Runner and Trailhunter look hella fun…but this giganto combo-event? I’m happy to let someone else take that fire hose.
Just do one car at a time, Toyota. One car! Give the full event’s attention to that car! Give us longer drives in that one car so we have better-baked opinions of it. More fun with it! Heck, you might even get shrimp-induced Stockholm syndrome from a few of the less savory types in the industry. One at a time!!!
Toyota, please. Toyota, I am begging. S T A H P.
But what if Porsche did a combo event? What would you say then?
{ gets out water sprayer }
NO! BAD PARSH BAD!!!
{ spritz, spritz }
NEIN!
I thought the same thing. Even spending all day on one vehicle typically isn’t enough to get a full understanding/experience with it. Especially with how structured these events are. The designated courses have been run through many times to make sure the vehicles don’t run into snags (which they sometimes still do). Doing my own thing on my own courses is always more informative to me than these events.
please send that Trailhunter to: [redacted] Austin, TX 78703 and I promise to wash the mud off before returning it
I agree. Too much of a good thing…dilutes the broth..or something something.
Too many cooks will spoil the broth (but they’ll fill our hearts with so much, so much loooooove)
The only counterpoint I have is…there is no such thing as too many Puffalumps. They’re SO good.
Creating an event that limits time with the vehicles seems intentional.
They’re hoping for a bunch of ‘WOW, Look at all the New Toyotas!’ headlines all at once instead of several ‘This New Toyota is a Little Disappointing’ headlines spread out over a month.